Batley Bulldogs coach Craig Lingard hails middle men after Challenge Cup win at Halifax
Bulldogs got their competitive season off to a flying start with a 19-6 victory, after losing both their pre-season matches.
Describing his team’s performance at the Shay as “very good”, Lingard said: “We challenged the players after the [warm-up] game at Featherstone .
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Hide Ad“We weren’t good enough and we challenged the middles to put in a performance.
“We said they would set the tone and dictate the tempo of the game and it certainly went that way.
“We had some quality on the edges to put away the tries when the opportunities came, so I was very, very pleased to get a good performance from the boys.” Bulldogs led 8-0 at half-time and 12-0 early in the second half, but had to withstand heavy pressure after Halifax pulled six points back.
“We dropped off a little bit in the second half with our game control,” Lingard admitted.
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Hide Ad“The end of our sets weren’t as good as they needed to be, Halifax got a little bit of field position and we were put under the pump a bit.
“We came through the other side of that and I was really pleased with our endeavour.”
James Brown has a chance of featuring in this weekend’s second round tie at Featherstone, after missing the win over Halifax through injury.
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